Whales composing songs...NPR stories

[davd_indigo]

I happened to catch both of these stories on NPR this month. One question that fascinates me is what sort of language whales might have. The mentality that humans are the supreme beings put here by god and all other creatures are here for our comfort and convenience seems like nonsense to me. The American settlers from Europe saw the Indians/Native Americans as primitive savages. They were simply different and not understood. We all know this now.

 

What fascinates me about the whales and other species is that they may have cultures that we simply haven't yet fathomed. Another thing I wonder (I'm trained musically but not in audio science and acoustics etc.) is the prospect of hydroacoustics. Might there be something like our overtone series in water and would this shape the music that whales might develop. The first story here says that whales seem to make up songs and these songs develop and evolve over time. And that the songs are used to woo female whales. And the female whales seem attracted to more creative whale songs. Kind of like that sax player in a jazz club attracting the ladies.

 

The second NPR story is about recording the whale sounds by the US Navy, kind of accidentally. The whale sounds were dismissed as bioacoustic "noises" until someone studying whales became involved.

 

 

http://www.npr.org/2015/08/06/427851306/it-took-a-musicians-ear-to-decode-the-complex-song-in-whale-calls

 

 

 

http://www.npr.org/2015/08/13/429496320/listening-to-whale-migration-reveals-a-sea-of-noise-pollution-too

 

 

 

[Anderton]

I had the good fortune to record whale sounds up in Alaska many years ago with Bernie Krause using borrowed navy hydrophones. I posted those samples on my original AOL site and at one point I was told they were the most popular downloads on AOL. What was particularly interesting was the sounds they made when "bubble netting" where they would catch their food by surrounding them with bubbles, thus "trapping" them.

 

Whales do in fact make up songs that evolve, this has been known for a while. There are repetitive patterns to them as well...sort of like Top 40.

 

All we need for evidence that humpback whales are much cooler than humans is that they spend winters in Hawaii, summers in Alaska, and sing songs as they go back and forth.

 

Another interesting experiment I did once was trying to communicate with dolphins. I created an instrument that could make sounds in the 30 - 80 kHz range, and borrowed navy transducers capable of broadcasting these sounds into the water. I went into the dolphin tanks at Sea World in San Jose, and started playing. Those dolphins came right over to me, they were super-excited at first. But I didn't know how to speak their language. Once they figured out that I was essentially just saying jibberish, they lost interest and swam away. I guess as a representative of the human species, I was quite the disappointment. "Hey look, this guy's talking to us!! Cool!!! Wait...never mind. He's an idiot."

[Folder]

I've done a good bit of playing music with Bonobos. I've played guitar with them while they played keyboards and percussion instruments.

 

From my experiences I can tell that they like music and they respond to it. They also like to participate with making music. I also believe that they have an innate sense of rhythm. It's hard to tell how well they can hear melody and harmony but they seem to be able recognize musical moods.

 

Here is video of me playing guitar with Kanzi and Panbanisha:

 

I asked Kanzi if he wanted to play with me and started playing some major seventh chords on the guitar.

He started paying along with me on a metal drum but he was playing a bit fast. Panbanisha came over and took the drum from Kanzi and played at a closer relative tempo to what I was playing.

 

[video=youtube;rQHJ8-J5nwI]

 

Here is a video of Peter Gabriel playing with Panbanisha on Keyboard:

 

 

 

Here is a video of Peter Gabriel playing with Kanzi on Keyboard:

 

 

 

 

[Anderton]

Folder, that's fascinating. Feel free to contribute more about this.

[Folder]

Folder, that's fascinating. Feel free to contribute more about this.

 

I became involved with playing music with Kanzi and Panbanisha back in the summer of 2001.

Kanzi and Panbanisha are bonobo apes with linguistic abilities.

 

 

[video=youtube;TaNtf-MviLE]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TaNtf-MviLE

 

I've played various instruments with them including acoustic guitar, electric guitar and electronic keyboards. I usually played original music with them and would improvise with their responses. Each of them had different playing styles and would respond to different types of music. Kanzi would respond more to uptempo music whereas Panbanisha seemed to prefer softer styles. They also seemed to like certain tunes more than others. I had a bouncy song called "the gorilla song" that had a quirky melody and diminished sixth chords that they especially liked. They also seemed to like acoustic instruments more than electric ones. They especially liked the acoustic guitar.

 

Shortly after I started playing with them Peter Gabriel came out and played with them. In 2002 Paul McCartney came out and played with them. October of 2012 was the last time I played with Panbanisha. She helped compose a melody on the keyboard for a piece of music I was working on. Sadly she passed away in November of that year so I never really got to finish it.

 

[Anderton]

Thanks again, Folder...great stuff. Reminds us that maybe humans aren't the center of the universe after all.